


Mutual Dreaming

by Arriva



Category: The Black Tapes Podcast
Genre: Alex oversteps boundaries, Drabble, Gen, Richard is prickly, the usual stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 00:13:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7014418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arriva/pseuds/Arriva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After months of insomnia, Alex is surprised when she dreams. She's even more surprised when Dr. Strand shares the same dream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mutual Dreaming

**Author's Note:**

> My first Black Tapes fic! And hopefully not the last! This takes place during episode 2.06 the morning after Alex and Richard's stay at the Empress Hotel and before their cars get ransacked. It's super drabbly, but I really wanted to write a conversation between Alex and Richard! The ending is kind of weird so I might go back and edit that.

Traveling always felt strange to Alex Reagan. It served as this odd limbo between either chasing a story or returning from one. Her time spent in a plane or car or whatever mode of transportation most convenient never felt like a real time, simply filler for the stranger events to come. To keep herself sane, Alex typically sorted through interviews and cuts and the best edits to put an episode together. But until she made it to the studio, she may as well be frozen in time.

Future story: the Empress Hotel. Current transportation: a ferry. 

Today's travel wasn't entirely monotonous. While the ferry trudged along, Alex balanced cardboard cups of coffee and bagels for two. The sky was overcast, unsurprisingly, and a fog blanketed the entire ferry. Until it reached Seattle, Alex may as well be in her own sheltered world. The world of sacred geometry and demonic children loomed on the horizon, but for now, it could wait.

Richard Strand of course, never waited. Alex found him right where she left him on the deck. His sharp blue eyes stared intensely out into the fog, as if willpower alone could cut through it. Alex sat down next to him. "I got us some coffee."

"Isn't this your second cup?" he said.

"Third."

Making light of her insomnia came naturally. The alternative was wallowing in self-pity. Alex had a job to do, and she preferred to keep the wallowing to a bare minimum.

Richard silently took a coffee and a bagel. He also pulled out five packets of sugar; for a man so cynical, the sweetness of his coffee always surprised Alex. Moments like these, the ones that didn't make it to the podcast, reminded Alex of traveling. Dead space between earth-shattering revelations. In this moment, they were two people sipping coffee on a dreary gray morning.

Even then, the need to document their interaction pulled at Alex. The recorder was resting in her coat pocket. One click and he wouldn't even notice. Her hand snaked into her pocket. "So what was it like? Sleeping in the room where your honeymoon was?"

"Are you recording this?" Alex picked up on the slight edge in his voice, despite his best attempt to sound casual.

Right. Richard was barely tolerating her. If she hadn't caught him at the Empress Hotel, they'd probably be spending this trip on opposite ends of the ferry. Alex drew her hand away from the recorder. "No. Just... it's been twenty years. I was wondering if it felt different."

"Of course it felt different," Richard said. As usual, his gift for making even the most cryptic statements sound obvious came out in full force. Alex wanted to kick herself. "I did have a strange dream last night. But it was nothing."

The great Dr. Richard Strand _dreamed_. Suddenly ancient demonic monasteries didn't seem so farfetched. "What did you dream about?"

"It was _nothing_ , Alex," he reiterated. "Contrary to what Freud and Jung have embedded into our culture, dreams rarely hold significance beyond what the dreamer looks for. They're not prophetic or spiritual. They're simply a tool our subconscious uses to process events that have happened to us."

Some days Richard's long-winded statements about logic and science grated on Alex, but today, she didn't mind as much. Maybe it was the fog. Maybe it was the cheap coffee. Maybe she was just tired. God, was she tired.

"I was only asking because I had a dream too," Alex said. Her first one in months, at least the first one she remembered. She was surprised her insomnia even permitted her to dream. "It was frightening, but I wasn't actually scared until I woke up. In the dream, I was... excited. Do you remember that painting we looked at?" Richard's grip tightened on his coffee cup. How could he forget? He slept in the same room with it. "I was in the forest from the painting. I was chasing something. And that deer-person was with me. He looked at me and smiled. Then he gestured to his right, and there was a shriek like nails on a chalkboard- I thought it might be human. We ran into a clearing and then..."

"You woke up," Richard finished. Once again, he was silent. Saying it out loud, Alex realized how silly the dream sounded. She could already hear him droning on about another logical explanation:  _Your subconscious was influenced by your environment. Obviously the painting affected your dreams. Blah blah blah, I'm so smart, I probably never believed in Santa Claus-_

"Are you sure that's what you dreamed about?" That same edge was back and stronger than before. 

"It's not exactly something I'd forget. Why?" Richard didn't answer. He forced a sip of coffee, his face twisted into discomfort, the same way someone stumbling upon a corpse might look. Alex didn't understand why. Or how he knew when her dream ended. Unless... "Richard, did you have the same dream?" His silence gave away everything. "Oh my god."

And with those magic words, Richard jumped right back in to hard-headed skepticism. "We don't know that. Conceptually, they may be similar, but that doesn't mean our dreams shared the exact same characteristics."

"But the forest, the deer man, the weird chase, you dreamed that too?" Alex said.

"...I did, but your interpretation-"

"You don't think it's the slightest bit weird?" She was pushing too hard now, but she couldn't help it. That seemed to be a recurring theme between her and Richard.

Richard paused the way he always did in interviews when Alex asked him an uncomfortable question. "I didn't say that."

Alex pushed harder. "What are the odds that we had the exact same dream on the exact same night after seeing the exact same painting? I'm not saying it means something paranormal, but... it doesn't unsettle you? Not even a bit?"

"I visited the room my  _wife_ slept in," Richard said, carefully contained fire in his voice. The word _honeymoon_ was unspoken but clear. "I have every right to be unsettled, but that doesn't mean I want to analyze it with you."

He got up to throw away his coffee. Alex had only seen Richard visibly angry a handful of times. Any other time, his emotional spectrum ranged from mildly bemused to prickly and agitated. Still, if he could have jumped off the ferry and swam to Seattle, Alex was sure he'd do it now. Unfortunately for him, they were stuck together. 

Richard returned to his spot with no intent of starting up their conversation. Alex couldn't blame him. She didn't know how to explain her decisions anymore. Was it journalistic instinct? Insomnia? Demons? But she _was_ tired. The coffee delayed her exhaustion, but the bags under her eyes reminded her of what was to come. There'd be another sleepless night which would lead to another tension-fueled conversation with Richard or Nic or someone else she cared about.

And yet, the person she feared hurting the most was always Richard. Maybe that was why she asked him in a softer voice, "What's happening to us?"

"A number of things," Richard said dryly.

"If you say apophenia, I swear to god I will dump my coffee on you." Richard chuckled, a small victory for Alex. They were closer than before. But like magnets facing the same poles, they didn't touch. "You're lucky I need all the caffeine I can get."

"Did you sleep? Aside from your- our dream?" _Our_ dream. Alex smiled slightly.

"Not much," she said. "Once I woke up, I couldn't get back to sleep. Not that I'm surprised. At this point, it feels like something I'll have to live with it for the rest of my life."

"I highly doubt that," Richard said.

"Then _when_?" It was a barbed question, and they both knew it. "I'm sorry. I'm just..."

"Tired." That seemed to be their new watchword. Alex overstepping journalism ethics? Tired. Richard disappearing for days? Tired. Alex didn't want to rely on it like a crutch, but when her best night of sleep involved a spooky hotel and mutual dreaming, she was, once again, too tired to care.

Impulsively, Alex leaned into Richard. To her surprise, she felt him lean closer. She could now feel his chest rising and falling at a steady, comforting rhythm. He was remarkably warm, or maybe she was remarkably cold. Regardless, they fit like two jagged halves, neither a perfect fit for the other, but close enough for them not to care.

They stayed like that until the Washington coastline broke through the fog. Richard said something about his car, Alex said something about her recordings, and the two parted peacefully. No arguments, no storming out, they simply left each other. The arguments would come. As soon as the ferry docked, they'd be thrown back into the Black Tapes and all the trouble that came with them.

Alex approached her car and saw a broken window. She assumed the worst. When she got to her car, she assumed correctly.

Turns out trouble came sooner than she realized.


End file.
